The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Stewart J. Cort upbound in the St. Marys River. (Roger LeLievre) #1 ea STEWART e CORT by Jody Aho International Bridge was underway, as was work on the first several miles of I-75 leading south from the soon-to-open bridge. Just a few feet away, a new lift span for the railroad bridge connecting the U.S.and Canada was in place. Perhaps the most significant project in more than a century in the vicinity of the Soo Locks was also beginning, a project that would provide the key to a permanent change in the size, design and number of vessels sailing the Great Lakes. The new Poe Lock, which eventually opened in 1969, would be big enough to handle a V ] new generation of supercarriers, vessels 1,000-feet long, 105-feet esse wide and 31-feet deep. Without it, the Vessel of the Year for 2002, of the Ss Ste. Marie, MI., was a busy place in 1961. Construction on the new the Stewart J. Cort, would never have been built. In 1968, with the Poe Lock’s completion imminent, Bethlehem ear Steel Corp.announced contracts with two shipyards to build different sections of what would become the Great Lakes’ first y | 60 q 1,000-footer. Bethlehem Steel was no stranger to owning large vessels. Two of the first 600-footers, Daniel J. Morrell and Edward Y. Townsend, built in the early 1900s, sailed for Bethlehem subsidiaries, and the fleet's 730-foot Arthur B. Homer would hold the record for the Great Lakes’ largest iron-ore cargo for two years to start the 1970s. A new steel mill in Burns Harbor, IN., which opened in 1969, provided even more impetus for building the Great Lakes’ largest vessel. Ironically, the Stewart J. Cort’s first nickname was “Stubby.” The bow and stern sections were built by Ingalls Shipbuilding Corp. in Pascagoula, MS., in 1970, and welded together to make a 182-foot long, 75-foot wide package. Under itsown > 4 KYS 2002